


sometimes solace is an (ex)anarchist pig and a dude with wings

by ghostbandaids



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, DSMP, Dead Wilbur Soot, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injured TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Injury Recovery, Kinda, Lots of dialogue, Not Beta Read, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Sickfic, Temporary Character Death, Video Game Mechanics, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), look im an inniter, tommy deserves to yell at everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29908062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostbandaids/pseuds/ghostbandaids
Summary: “Why?” Tommy whispered. “Why put all this effort into keeping me alive?”“Do you remember when I asked if you wanted to be the hero, told you to die like one?” Technoblade asked.Tommy nodded.“You deserved better than that,” Techno said, fingers tight around the handle of his mug, knuckles white. “That wouldn’t have been the death of a hero.”Tommy doesn't die. Instead, he wakes up in Technoblade's cabin.
Relationships: Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 34
Kudos: 544





	sometimes solace is an (ex)anarchist pig and a dude with wings

**Author's Note:**

> yes this is just sbi brainrot and it might have been plausible if wilbur hadn't turned into a little bitch.. anyways.. i don't know how it got this long.. is there a plot? uh.. i hope so..
> 
>  **CW:** injuries, tommy still dies to dream (non-graphic) but it's temporary. i didn't really want to focus on the tommy&dream relationship so it's touched on but isn't mentioned much past the first part of the story. 
> 
> keep in mind that this was written before tommy's march 4th stream so it's very divergent (also i didn't really add the commune in whoops that kinda makes it au)

There was something about having one life left and being trapped in the prison with his worst enemy — the enemy that he thought he’d finally defeated — that made Tommy feel hopeless. Tired. Day after day of raw potatoes and grating conversations, thinly-veiled threats, fighting Dream’s attempts to make himself seem like a friend again when Tommy knew that he was anything but. 

_Not a friend,_ Tommy reminded himself when Dream handed him food, a blanket. 

_Definitely not a friend,_ he thought when Dream started yelling. He was slumped against the wall, eyes closed, trying not to listen to the man’s endless rant. It slipped into his head regardless. 

Something about a revival book — Tommy knew that it was bullshit because once you died, you were gone. No coming back from that. Dream’s charade as a charismatic leader had fallen through — now all that came out of his mouth were the tirades of a madman. 

Tommy sometimes wondered if Dream had ever been completely sane, if there’d been a tipping point or if he’d been like this all along, somewhere under the surface. 

It didn’t matter.

The outcome wouldn’t change.

Tommy stretched his arms out, pulling his aching body off the hard, obsidian floor. He told Dream in an exhausted voice that there was no resurrection waiting for them, that Dream had lost his power and was panicking in its absence. That he was nothing but a sad little man.

“Why won’t you kill me then?” Dream taunted, smile arched across his face. “Why not—afraid or something? Don’t you want to get rid of me for good?”

“I don’t need to,” Tommy answered. “Because I’ll be fine—I’ll be out of here soon, and I’ll leave you here to rot.”

Dream hummed as if he knew something that Tommy didn’t. 

“The revive-book—” he started. 

“The revive-book isn’t real!” Tommy shouted. “Schlatt is dead. Wilbur is dead—I saw their bodies, they’re _gone.”_

“Oh,” Dream said, voice dangerous. “Why don’t you go visit them, then?”

Tommy backed against the wall but Dream was too fast, even emaciated and ragged around the edges. He lunged at Tommy, and the boy was unable to do anything more than cover his face with his hands as he fell to the floor. 

Fell to the floor, hard. Too hard. There was a fist — two fists — sharp, searing pain. 

Even as the world blurred, he didn’t regret standing up to Dream one last time. 

There was white. There was nothingness. There was a gaping void that engulfed him until all he could feel was his own presence, his ears and hands and eyes finding no traction in the empty space. 

“Hello?” he said, voice small and echoing around him. 

“Tommy?” a voice answered. 

He whipped around. He already knew who it was, of course. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. 

“Wilbur,” he said, more of a sob. “Wil.”

There were arms around him, warm, strong arms. He collapsed into them, and Wilbur didn’t say anything until his panicked breathing slowed, rocking him back and forth and humming some L’Manbergian melody into his ear. 

“Shh,” the man said, “It’s alright, Toms, breath.”

That only made him feel worse because what was the point of breathing when his lungs weren’t real, when _he_ was a fragment in some fucking afterlife? 

“It’s okay,” Wilbur continued. “It’ll be okay.”

It didn’t seem like it, but Tommy didn’t say that, focusing on matching his breath to Wilbur’s instead. Trying to ignore the fog creeping in at the edges of his vision. 

“I messed up,” Tommy whispered. “I was so close to winning this and now Dream, he’s—I don’t know what’s going to happen but I messed up and now I’m dead.”

“You did so well,” Wilbur replied, voice soft, comforting. “You did your best.”

“Well my best wasn’t fucking good enough,” Tommy muttered. “I’m never good enough.”

“Don’t say that,” Wilbur said. “You know it’s not true. You’re sixteen fucking years old—think about what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished.”

Tommy shook his head. He didn’t want to think about whether he’d succeeded or not because right now, all he felt was failure. “I wish you hadn’t left,” he said. “I miss you every day.”

“It was a mistake,” Wilbur replied, voice bitter, so quiet Tommy could barely hear him. “I wish that I’d stayed. I should have been there.”

“It’s okay,” Tommy said. “It’s—”

Suddenly, he felt cold, strange in a not-really-there sort of way. He looked down at his hands, held in Wilbur’s solid ones, and they were near-translucent. Slowly disappearing. 

“Look,” he whispered, holding them up. 

Wilbur’s eyes widened. 

“Toms,” he said, an exhale — he sounded relieved. “I knew it wasn’t your time yet. I could tell.” He pulled Tommy into his arms for a second time, holding him so tight that Tommy decided to memorize the feeling of the embrace, never forget it. 

“I don’t want to go,” he told Wilbur. “Let me stay, I want—I want to be here with you.”

Wilbur shook his head. 

“Come back when you’re older,” he answered, “And we’ll talk.”

“You better fucking wait for me,” Tommy said.

“I will. I love you,” Wilbur replied softly. “Never forget how proud I am.”

“Thank you,” Tommy whispered. “I love you too.”

“ _Go,”_ Wilbur said, and Tommy felt a tug, a pull from somewhere that wasn’t there, wasn’t the void. The last thing that he saw was Wilbur’s smiling face, a small wave. 

Gasping for air, the bitter taste of healing potions in his mouth.

“Tommy? Tommy!” yelled a voice from above. He couldn’t lift his head to see who it was. Pain throbbed in his head, in his whole body. “I think he just took a breath!”

He started to cough and felt the ribs in his chest crackle. 

Spots spun in front of his closed eyes. 

And then he was gone, dragged down into unconscious darkness. 

It was the sounds that came back first. The low murmur of voices in another room, the crackle of a fire in a nearby hearth. Wind blowing outside, complaining against the wall of wherever he was. 

He _hurt._ His body was a mess of aches and sharp, painful points, and his head was the worst of all, throbbing incessantly. It was hard to focus on anything in specific, too painful to try and make a plan.

So he thought about the quilt draped over his body, the not-quite-uncomfortable tightness of bandages down his arms. He wondered why they hadn’t used healing potions and then he wondered how there’d been anything to heal because he’d so obviously been dead. 

He already missed Wilbur. 

The room’s door opened quietly, and he forced himself to relax, keeping his breathing steady as someone crossed the room, footsteps growing louder. There was a sigh, a hand brushing the hair off his forehead and feeling his temperature. 

“Awake?” a voice asked from the hallway.

“No,” the one above him answered. 

A clink of porcelain against the bedside table, a creak of a chair as someone sat down in it and then he felt the hand tilt his chin up, and he couldn’t stand it anymore because Dream had touched his face and—

“Stop it!” he yelled, pushing himself away from the touch and opening his eyes to the sight of Technoblade with a spoon full of broth suspended in the air. 

“Stop,” he repeated, wincing as his lungs constricted painfully, and his head pounded. 

“It’s just me,” the man said, holding out his free hand. “Calm down.” 

Tommy didn’t want to look at Techno and his stupid pig-tusk mouth and his stupid glasses. That stupid hand, holding the spoon, had seemed much more adept at placing a TNT grid. _Just me,_ he’d said. But what was that supposed to mean? Was that supposed to make Tommy feel safe? It didn’t.

Phil watched from the hallway, face unsure, wings bristled behind him.

“Get out,” Tommy said, teeth gritted. “Now.” They shared a glance, expressions communicating something that Tommy couldn’t decipher. Then, Techno pushed himself off the chair, setting the soup down gently next to Tommy before leaving the room. He didn’t shut the door. 

Tommy’s heart raced with adrenaline and fear, a pounding sense of _you’re not safe here, you’re not safe here._

If he’d been able to move, he would have run and never stopped. But he couldn’t run, so he did the next best thing; he closed his eyes and tried not to think about whose bed he was in, whose house he was in. Tried not to think about how his own brother and father, who’d _betrayed_ him, had for some reason decided to force him back to life. 

“Just use healing potions,” he muttered when he woke up again to Phil tapping his shoulder, holding a glass of water to his mouth, saying, “You have to swallow this, okay?”

He felt awful, eyes so leaden that he could barely keep them open. 

“We can’t,” Phil said. “Sorry.”

“Why not?”

“You—you were—” Phil hesitated, searching for words. “Sam re-started your heart with them and they did what they could. Your body needs a couple of days before it can handle more.”

“Hurts.”

“I know, bud. I’m sorry.”

And he hated Phil, _hated_ him. But in that second, when Phil pushed his hair off his forehead and carded his fingers through it like he’d done when Tommy was young, sick, he closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. 

He knew that it wasn’t safe. He knew that. But for a second, he let himself pretend. 

“I have to check your bandages.”

“Don’t,” Tommy mumbled, pulling the quilt tighter around the arms. 

“Have you eaten?” Phil asked from the doorway. Tommy shook his head. The bowls sat optimistically untouched until Phil or Techno carried them back to the kitchen. 

“Let me look at one of your arms,” Techno said, voice softer than usual as if that would convince Tommy that they didn’t hate him anymore. “Just one. Please.”

“Fine.”

Techno lifted the bandaged limb, slowly unwrapping the gauze. Underneath was scratched and spattered with bruises and cuts, tinted yellow and green and the ugliest shades of all the colors. He watched as the man rubbed a salve over the marks, glaring at them with murderous intensity. 

“You’re mad,” Tommy whispered. 

“Yes,” Technoblade answered. His voice wasn’t loud but there was an undertone of rage, of barely-controlled anger. 

“At me?” 

“No,” Techno said, pushing the chair back and standing up in a sudden motion. “Finish his arm,” he muttered to Phil before he stormed out of the room. Tommy watched him go, not sure whose fault it was that his own brother couldn’t stand to be in the same room as him for more than a couple of minutes. 

“Not at you,” Phil said, picking up the bowl and reaching for Tommy’s arm. “At Dream. He doesn’t like to lose control in front of people, you know.”

“That’s funny,” Tommy said, followed by a bitter laugh. “When has he ever worried about getting mad in front of me? Can’t yell in front of his brother in his house, but blowing up said brother’s entire country and spawning withers while yelling at him is fine, huh?”

“That’s different, it’s—”

“Is it? You’re the adults—apparently _you’re_ allowed to do stuff like that but the second I light a couple floorboards of some asshole’s mushroom house on fire, my whole life goes to shit.”

Phil stared at him for a second without saying anything, starting to unwrap the bandages on Tommy’s other arm instead. Tommy let him; the salve dulled the pain. 

“You done, mate?” Phil asked, breaking the silence — as if Tommy’s words had been unwarranted or irrational or wrong. 

“Fuck you,” Tommy said. “No. I’m not done.” He wanted to yell, wanted Phil to understand just how unfair it was, everything that had happened. Wanted the man who’d once been closer to him than almost anyone to listen. 

“Because I’m back here again—alive— just waiting for you to get tired of me and turn me over to the Eggpire or whatever the next evil entity of this server is.” He glanced up and met Phil’s eyes. “I know you don’t care.”

“We’re family,” Phil said, a sad smile across his face. “Of course I care.”

“Don’t tell me that us being family changes a single thing because the second I go against your ideals, you abandon me. Every time. Techno’s never really chosen me and neither have you.”

“You betrayed him—”

“Did he really think that I would blow up L’Manberg? He’s the smart one. He knew what I would choose, and he didn’t face it until it was too late.”

“You could have told him that, then.”

“Was it so wrong to want time with him? Support? He’s my brother—our relationship shouldn’t be some political alliance.” Phil opened his mouth but Tommy kept talking. “And L’Manberg—you know, the nation that _you_ helped destroy? That was all I had left of Wilbur—and now it’s gone.”

“We thought that it was for the best,” Phil sighed. “It _was_ Wilbur’s. It killed him.”

Phil wasn’t wrong; Wilbur had died for some romanticized idea of patriotism. But Tommy didn’t want this conversation to be about Wilbur.

“You teamed up with _Dream,_ ” Tommy spat venomously. 

Phil seemed to shudder at his name, a dark expression crossing his face. “Now _that,”_ he said, “was a mistake.” 

“It was,” Tommy agreed. “But why should I trust you any more than him? After all, the things that you’ve done could have killed me as easily as—as—” He couldn’t finish the sentence. Sure, falling TNT or a Wither blast could have killed him, but nothing was quite like what Dream had done. 

He tried not to think about that.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. “If I’d known that this would happen to my sons, my boys…” 

“What? Would you have left us in whatever shitholes you found us in? Just taken Techno? Tried to raise us differently?” 

“No,” Phil said softly. “Fate and all that—I don’t think that anything I changed would make a difference.”

“If you _could_ change it, would you?”

“If I could go back?”

“Yes.”

“I would stab that green bastard through the heart before he even opened his mouth.”

Tommy granted Phil a weak laugh. Maybe they all wished that. 

“Suppose it’s too late,” Tommy said quietly. 

“Yes,” Phil agreed. “It is.”

The potion stands were constantly lit, controlled fires blazing underneath their cauldrons. Technoblade tried to pass it off as normalcy, a routine, but Tommy could tell that the only potions they made these days were the ones he was forced to drink at mealtimes. 

Thankfully, it was far enough after his revival that he could use them. 

Strength with breakfast so that he could make it through the day, the taste sharp and burning as it went down his throat. It didn’t stop him from stumbling as he walked, falling asleep during dinner or any time he sat down, really, but it helped. 

Regeneration at dinner. It was fizzy, the aftertaste slightly medicinal with a hint of sweetness. They said that it was to make sure his heart didn’t stop, to help him heal. 

It made him feel useless, owing them things. Tommyinnit had always called himself independent yet here he was, stealing Techno’s supplies — again. Phil refused to even consider it when Tommy offered to go to the nether himself to make up for all the blaze powder and ghast tears he cost them. 

So he drank his potions, tried not to complain about the taste.

Hoped that there would be a day when he would be okay without them

Outside his window, the snowy hills were darkened by shadows, the tips faintly illuminated by the moonlight. Tommy stared out of it, not really looking for anything in particular, though he got the feeling that he was searching. 

Maybe there would be a shooting star. 

He didn’t have a wish ready for one. 

They’d taken most of the bandages off that morning, the conversation stilted and punctuated by hisses of pain at the tear of misplaced adhesive on his skin. He didn’t think that they’d been necessary; once he was strong enough for a healing potion and his head stopped pounding, he felt almost normal again. 

Shaky, tired — but he’d practically died, so he had an excuse. 

Slowly, he dragged himself from the bed, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders to ward off the chill that crept through the floor and the ceiling. He placed his hand on the doorknob, the metal icy and uncomfortable against his skin, and held it there for a couple of seconds before turning it.

When he stepped into the hallway, he saw a light in the kitchen. 

And maybe he’d hoped someone would be awake. 

Maybe he’d remembered an easier time when Technoblade, the chronic insomniac, would make Tommy hot chocolate on nights that neither of them could fall asleep, talking quietly at the worn, wooden table until the sun rose. 

Maybe he’d just been too thirsty to turn around and go back to bed — he didn’t like to spend time analyzing his own motives. 

Either way, he walked forward.

“Hello,” he said when he came through the doorway, watching Techno startle slightly in his seat at the table. 

They hadn’t talked, not since Techno’s failed doctoring attempt. Bandages were Phil’s job after that.

“Hello,” Techno replied. 

“How’re you doin’ Blade? How’s life?” He asked questions like that all the time, almost instinct at this point; he didn’t realize until it was out of his mouth that for the last week, Technoblade’s life had been exclusively based around taking care of him.

“It’s been…” Technoblade started, “quiet.” 

It was probably an insult, a dig at the fact that the last time he’d been here, Tommy had never seemed to shut up. 

He was more subdued this time. 

“The turtles are doing good,” the hulking man said. 

“The chat—well, they were worried.” He glanced up at Tommy for a second before his eyes returned to the surface of the table, like he was reminding himself that Tommy hadn’t gone anywhere. 

“They were the ones that told us that you—that you needed help. I couldn’t tell at first because all they were sayin’ was your name.”

Tommy sat down across from him and asked the question he’d held onto since the moment he opened his eyes to Technoblade. 

“Why?” he whispered. “Why did you listen to them and come? Why put all this effort into keeping me alive?”

“Do you remember when I asked if you wanted to be the hero, told you to die like one?” Technoblade asked. 

Tommy nodded. 

“You deserved better than _that_ ,” Techno said, fingers tight around the handle of his mug, knuckles white. “That wouldn’t have been the death of a hero.”

“You don’t even care—”

“—Believe me when I say that I do.”

“Are you saying that Dream didn’t do a good enough job—that you’d do better? Who’re you going to hire out for the instrumentals when we do _Tommy’s Last Death, Part Two_? Got any spare fireworks so that I can go out with a bang?” 

He was taunting, voice laced with forced humor serving only to disguise his hurt. Because it did hurt a bit. Who had given his brother the right to act like there was a difference between one antagonist and another? Between one threat of death and another?

Hadn’t Technoblade tried to kill him?

Was he only mad because Dream had gotten closer, beaten Techno in some sick competition?

 _Why did he care why did he care_ —

“Tommy,” Techno said. “Look at me, please.”

Tommy forced his eyes off his hands. 

“Sam said that if he’d gotten the lava down a _minute_ later, if he’d spent any longer finding potions, you would be dead.” The way that Techno spoke was clipped, detached. His eyes, though, looked tired. 

“And?” Tommy prompted. “I knew that already. For a minute, I _was_ dead.”

“I never really stopped to think about the fact that this whole time, you’ve been on one heart, one life. I’ve never lost one, you know.”

“I know,” Tommy sighed. He’d heard the famous _Technoblade never dies!_ more than enough to last a lifetime. 

“All the times that we fought together or against each other, I would have been fine if something happened—I’ve got my totems, my safeguards—and two more lives to live after this one,” Techno continued. “And I guess I knew that you already lost two lives to Dream, but I never stopped to think about what losin’ the last one meant.”

“You know this world—this fucking _game—_ better than anybody, and you didn’t realize that if I got killed, it would be for good?” Tommy asked. He would have liked to sound mad, but his voice bordered on exhausted instead. 

“I think that I did. I just—I—it wasn’t until chat started talkin’, until Sam messaged me, that I thought about what it would be like. Out of everyone, you seem like the one that just refuses to die.” 

“I came pretty close.”

“I know. Too close.”

“Would you have missed me?” Tommy asked. He told himself that he didn’t care about the reply.

“Yes.” For all his eloquence, Techno didn’t elaborate on this answer, but it came fast, sure. It sounded like the truth. 

It was too much, hearing Techno try to explain his own emotions in halting, stilted sentences as if he would have missed Tommy. The boy forced himself back to the pointed statements he’d been asking earlier because he hated to hear anything but confidence in Techno’s voice. 

“What’s next? Gonna deliver me to Dream—help him escape on that little favor you owe?”

“No,” Techno said sharply, glaring, though Tommy didn’t think it was directed at him. “I’m done. I’m stayin’ here or I’m going further away, but I am _not_ going back there. I’m tired of it.” It wasn't what Tommy had expected to hear.

“Why?” he asked. 

“I already lost Wilbur,” Techno answered. “And at first I thought it was because of his stupid little government, his dreams—but I think he was alone. Scared—I don’t know. Lonely.”

Somewhere above them, a board creaked under the weight of the snow. 

“And then I blamed the government anyway but fightin’ against that was like fightin’ against the waves in the ocean because people always want guidance, are always trying to follow something. It doesn’t matter if I destroy one because they refuse to stop growing like fuckin’ weeds.”

“It’s because of Wilbur, then?” Tommy said quietly, twisting the edge of the blanket around in his fingers. 

“Yes—but not just him. Because I thought that destroying L’manberg would solve things and then Dream nearly killed you and—” he paused, sighed. “And I realized that it was the people. I realized that there was always going to be another Dream that I couldn’t get rid of, another city, another government.”

For a second, they didn’t say anything at all. Tommy wondered what Techno was thinking about but that was impossible to guess.

“What are you going to do now?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence. 

“Retire, feed the turtles—I don’t know.”

“You already—” He lifted his finger for air quotes, “ _retired_ —That time you were gathering a stash of Wither skulls.”

“This time it’s for real.”

“I don’t believe you, you know. There’s no way you’ve just changed your mind—I don’t think you’ve ever given up before,” Tommy said. He wanted to trust Techno, he really did. But he couldn’t. There had been too many betrayals from all of them. 

He wasn’t even sure that they knew how to trust anymore. 

“I know,” Techno answered. “That’s okay.”

Tommy was starting to think that this had to be a trick, that Technoblade was working with Dream or that the afterlife was mocking the way he’d always wanted this. How long could it possibly last?

“When are you going to make me leave?” he asked. 

“I’m not,” Techno answered firmly. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

“That would be nice,” Tommy replied, his answer a second too late, voice a touch too hesitant. Technoblade got up and put water in the kettle anyway. 

They talked about Techno's new polar bear — Steve — and plans for a house expansion and whether Techno had figured out how to build a wing prosthetic prototype for Phil yet.

They didn’t talk about anarchy or Dream or Wilbur or L’manberg. 

The room was warm and his blanket was over his shoulders, a comforting weight. He felt his eyes slipping shut, his head falling to the table and snapping up a few times before he let it rest. He was distantly aware of being picked up by Techno, carried slowly down the hallway, set down in bed. The man pulled Tommy’s blanket over him and smoothed it down. 

The sound of the door shutting didn’t come. 

He was nearly asleep again when he heard Techno say something, straining his ears to make it out. 

“What do you think, chat? _Tommyinnit never dies_ kinda has a nice ring to it.” There was a pause — maybe he was listening to the voices that no one else could hear. “Jeez, you’re never goin’ to shut up about it now, are you?”

Tommy heard clothing shift, felt a soft, barely-there kiss pressed against his forehead and didn’t feel the need to flinch away — wondered why he _hadn’t_ flinched. Maybe what little self-preservation he’d owned had died when he’d managed not to.

“Yeah,” Techno said. “You’re right—I do need a job, after all. Guess I have to keep him safe.” There was something in his voice that Tommy almost didn’t recognize because it’d been so long. 

Love? Fondness?

The tones that he’d heard as a kid until they were slowly replaced by Techno’s characteristic, monotone nothingness. 

“Goodnight, Tommy,” Technoblade whispered. 

And then the door did close, clicking shut quietly. 

“Goodnight, Technoblade,” he said to the empty darkness.

 _Safe?_ The voice in his head asked. And for the first time in months, he answered: _Maybe._

They made him stop drinking the strength potion first, Techno saying, with a crooked smile, that Tommy would be able to beat him in a fight if he was drinking strength potions every day and they just couldn’t have that, could they?

It was hard to be faced with the raw exhaustion of coming back to life, no more potion to smooth out the edges of the weariness.

As much as he tried to pretend that he was okay, he always felt a little off, yawning and trying to blink away the sleepiness that refused to leave. 

The first time that he fell asleep on top of Techno was an accident; the man had been reading a book on the couch and Tommy had been sitting next to him — pestering, trying to persuade Techno to do something more exciting — when his eyes decided to slide shut on their own accord. Really, it wasn’t his fault; Techno was a warm, large pillow and once Tommy’d slid sideways, he was too tired to get back up, much less open his eyes again. 

When he realized that the man wasn’t going to yell at him for doing it, he curled into a ball and let himself slip into sleep completely. It felt _safe,_ secure _,_ even if he wasn’t completely sure why. 

He started following Techno around with a blanket after that, liking, for some reason, the feeling of going to sleep and knowing that there was someone there, that he wasn’t alone.

“Shoot,” Techno muttered, stretching canvas over the frame and marking the edges of the wood against the fabric. “I don’t think it’s going to flap right—and it looks kinda flimsy anyway.”

“Here,” Tommy said, holding out his arms from his perch on the workshop stool. “I’ll hold it and you can test it.”

Techno passed it over and Tommy clasped his fingers around the harness while the man took the end of the rudimentary wing in his hand and extended it, moving it from side to side. He was right; it didn’t move the way a bird’s wing — the way Phil’s wings — moved. Well, Phil’s wing. 

The man hadn’t been able to fly since he’d shielded Wilbur from the explosion. 

“Scrap pile?” Tommy asked.

“Mhm,” Techno answered. “Thought this one might work, too.”

He tried flapping it again and all it did was make some horrific screeching noises before refusing to move altogether.

“Techno?” Phil yelled from somewhere outside. “Tommy?”

“In here!” Techno yelled, stuffing the wing into a cabinet and pushing a hammer and a board into Tommy’s hand, pulling out a blueprint and a pencil for himself. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” Tommy hissed.

“Figure something out,” Techno answered. 

When Phil came through the door, Tommy was hammering the board into the work table while Techno watched with a barely-controlled expression of exasperation, unable to stop him. 

“Oh,” Phil said. “Looks...productive.”

“Techno said the table was boring!” Tommy said. “So I’m making it more interesting—I’m going to get some cobblestone next for texture!”

Phil glanced at Techno. “Really?” he asked slowly. 

“Yes,” Techno sighed.

“Alright then. Dinner in an hour or so, yeah?” Phil asked, eyes narrowed, still waiting for someone to admit that it was a bit. They didn’t; Tommy continued to hammer faithfully. The situation was excessively suspicious, but it would be fine as long as he didn’t know why. 

“Sounds good,” Techno said. 

Tommy watched the door swing shut behind Phil as he left. Swing shut. Swing. Almost a flapping motion. 

“What kind of hinges have you tried?” he asked Techno. 

“Why?”

“I think if you made one like this—“ He grabbed a piece of the blueprint paper, sketching out the peg system that their doors used. “—it might work better.”

“Heh?” Techno said. “Did I just witness Tommy having his first intelligent thoughts?”

“Fuck off. What do you think?”

“I think that you’re right. It just might work.”

The last regeneration potion was handed to him, Techno finally turning off the burners of the potion stand. 

“Will I be okay without it?” Tommy asked, trying to keep the shakiness out of his voice. Because he might have been less worried about dying a month ago but now, he kind of wanted to keep working on a wing for Phil and finish the books that Techno recommended. 

“You’ll be fine,” Phil told him. “It’s been long enough—you’ll be back to normal any day now.”

Tommy nodded and downed his kind-of-bitter-kind-of-sweet potion, wishing it farewell and telling his heart that it better not try any bullshit once the potion was out of his system because there wouldn’t be another one to follow. 

He wasn’t really that worried. 

If Phil and Techno said he would be fine, he would be fine. He didn’t know if it was against his better judgment or not, but he realized that at some point, he’d started to trust them. 

When their third prototype was finished, Techno declared that the wing was ready — or, at least, as ready as it could be. 

“After all,” he said. “Phil’s the only one who can test it out.”

They packed a picnic basket, and Techno loaded the horses, slipping the folded wing into one of the saddle-blankets. Tommy told Phil that he needed to go somewhere warm — _“To photosynthesize and shit”_ — and the man agreed to come on their outing, leaving behind the snowy cabin. 

The steady movement of the horse nearly lulled Tommy to sleep, but he forced himself to focus on the slowly changing scenery, watching the arctic shrubs change into bright green bushes and the icy clouds recede behind them.

When they reached a flower field that Tommy declared suitable, Techno spread out a blanket and they sat down with sandwiches. Techno’s eyes constantly flicked in the direction of the wing, and Tommy was filled with a nervous-excitement, the feeling buzzing around in his head until he couldn’t take it anymore

“We made something for you,” he said suddenly, interrupting whatever boring conversation the men had been having. 

“Oh?” Phil replied. “What kind of thing?”

Techno stood up and tugged the wing from the blanket, handing it to Phil, and for a second, the man just stared at it. Then, recognition flashed across his face. 

“Is this—is it a wing?” he asked softly, eyes shining. 

They nodded. 

“If this works,” Tommy said. “It was all me—my design.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Phil asked, holding the contraption out at arm's length.

“Then Techno made it,” Tommy answered. Behind him, the man sighed. “And I’ll claim that I’ve never seen that thing in my life.”

“It’ll work,” Techno said. 

It slipped underneath the remains of Phil’s burnt and twisted right-wing, a stark contrast to the healthy, black plumage of his left. Technoblade gently tightened the straps across Phil’s chest while Tommy explained how it flapped — it wasn’t supposed to be particularly powerful, just fill in the gaps where his missing feathers and support would have been.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Phil asked again, tone less jovial and more unsure. “It’s been so long…”

Techno shook his head. “You haven’t forgotten how—and are you questionin’ my work quality?”

“Well, I heard that Tommy helped some—”

“Quit stalling,” Tommy said. “You’ll be fine. I’ll have you know that I’m the best uh—builder—around.”

Phil took a deep breath and tentatively flapped his wings, lifting off the ground slightly. Then, in a sudden gust of wind that blew through Tommy’s hair, he pumped them and shot up into the sky with a joyous shout. 

“Mission success!” Tommy yelled, pumping a fist into the air. 

“Yes,” Techno agreed, smiling. “Success.”

It was a couple of minutes before Phil returned, hair windswept and grin spread wide across his face. “Thank you,” he said. “For that. It’s—you don’t even know what it means.”

Tommy remembered flying with Phil as a kid, high above the pastures and the forest, yelling at people in the village down below and as if Phil had read his mind, the man asked, “Want to go up?”

“What?”

“I think that I could carry you—not for long, but it feels strong enough.”

Tommy hesitated, just for a second, before saying, “Yes.”

Phil wrapped his arms around Tommy and before he knew it, they were up in the sky again, spiraling in an exhilarating sense of freedom, the clouds almost in reach as Phil flapped his canvas and feathered wings in unison.

And then Phil spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“What for, big man?” Tommy asked.

“Do you remember our conversation? It’s been—I don’t even know—couple of weeks?”

He was talking about the argument that they’d had when Tommy was too weak for healing potions, yelling about how unfair everyone was in the dark bedroom while Phil re-bandaged his arm.

“You said sorry then, too,” Tommy replied after a long pause, wondering why it was being brought up again.

“I’m not sure if I meant it then.”

“Oh. Do you mean it now?”

“I’ve been—I’ve been thinking about it,” Phil said, eyes focused on the sky in front of them, forehead wrinkled slightly with concentration. “I think that you’re right, that we got away with it all.”

“Do you regret doing it?” Tommy asked. 

“I can’t say that I do. But what we did, it was a lot worse than what they punished you for—you didn’t deserve that.”

Tommy looked out over the fields rushing below them, heard the wind and the blood pumping in his ears. 

“No,” he agreed. “I didn’t.”

In a way, he’d known that all alone — but it was nice to hear Phil say it too. 

“So,” he started, unsure of what to ask, “this isn’t a change of heart?”

“No,” Phil said softly, shaking his head. “Not really—maybe a change of mind—I just wanted you to know that I understand now, that what happened to you _was_ unfair.”

“Oh,” Tommy said, an exhale. Because when was the last time someone had told him _that_? “Does this mean—“

He cut himself off. 

“Does this mean what?”

“Nothing.”

“Tommy,” Phil said warningly. 

“What, gonna drop me?” Tommy asked, followed by a weak laugh. Phil skimmed over the forest and a couple of leaves brushed the bottoms of his shoes before the man tilted his wings upwards, the movement buoying them up into the sky. 

“Does this mean that you’re not mad at me anymore?” Tommy asked quietly. “That you don’t hate me?”

“Oh, Toms,” Phil said. “I never hated you. Never.”

“Really?” 

“Really.”

“Oh.”

It wasn’t a _sorry I treated you the same as Wilbur until I decided you weren’t really my son after all_ or an _I regret blowing up your home_ or even a _sorry I left you behind,_ but it was enough. It was a reassurance, hope for something new. Maybe even something better.

The silence that followed wasn’t tense or awkward like it had been when Tommy’d first woken up in the cabin. It was soft, the shared experience of the wind in their hair more than words. Tommy did his best to fend off the insidious tiredness that crept in with the rhythm of Phil’s flapping wings. 

Phil turned, heading back the way they’d come, breathing slightly laborious. 

“You ready to go back down?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Tommy answered. “And maybe home too—I’m kind of tired.”

Phil nodded and they started their descent towards the picnic blanket, Techno waving them down like a conductor. 

He realized on the horse ride towards the cabin that neither of them had even stopped to think about the fact that he’d called it _home._

That was just what it had become, with its quilts and workshop and stacks of books and his own bedroom, although he’d taken to sleeping on the couch. 

With Technoblade and Phil, his little makeshift family, held together by spite and willpower and some well-hammered nails and a ball of twine or two.

It _was_ home. 

Simple as that. 

**Author's Note:**

> AHH thank you so much for reading!! i hope that you liked it (: 
> 
> here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/ghostbandaids) if you want to be a victim of my constant polls, see more half-assed art, or just yell at me (i crave interaction)
> 
> let me know what you thought!! comments are so so so cool if you have time or feedback <3


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